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On the pages of Wesley Pruden's Washington Times, the South rises again
Written by Max Blumenthal
On June 14, Washington Times editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden penned a column denouncing the Senate's resolution formally apologizing for its past failures to pass a federal anti-lynching law during the height of Jim Crow-era violence. He focused his criticism on the resolution's authors, Sens. George Allen (R-VA) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) (whom he referred to throughout his column as "Mzz Landrieu"), writing: "Mzz Landrieu and Mr. Allen put on a demonstration of manufactured remorse last night in the Senate to persuade their colleagues to apologize for having never enacted a federal anti-lynching law."
Though Pruden is one of only a few nationally syndicated columnists to have explicitly condemned the Senate's resolution, the apology has inspired passionate criticism from across the ideological spectrum. For instance, in a June 28 Salon.com opinion piece, African-American author Debra J. Dickerson said of the apology: "It's too damn little, much too damn late." Pruden was careful to note that he opposed the apology on the grounds that it was a politicized "morality play," not a historical corrective to the legacy of racism in the South: "We have much to regret in our history, and slavery and the treatment of blacks is at the top of the list. But cheap apologies only dilute authentic shame and genuine remorse." Pruden's argument then veered down a troubling route, using an archaic Confederate term -- "the War Between the States" -- to describe the Civil War.
The day after Pruden's column appeared, the Times published an editorial characterizing banking firm Wachovia Corp.'s apology for profiting from the slave trade as giving in to the "slavery-reparations movement," which "sees gold in corporate boardrooms." (Wachovia has offered no reparations to the descendants of slaves, but is consulting with civil rights groups on how to proceed.)
The reasons Pruden offered for attacking apologies for slavery and its legacy are vague and, at times, contradictory, so it may be impossible to conclusively determine his motives for such criticisms. Besides Pruden's strident tone toward the Senate and Wachovia, he has made numerous other sympathetic statements about the Confederacy and employs a neo-Confederate activist in the Times newsroom. As Pruden wrote in his June 14 column: "Only the Lord knows the depth of a man's sincerity in these matters, so we're left to measure as best we can."
Pruden's father, Wesley Pruden Sr., was the chaplain to the Capital Citizens Council in Little Rock, Arkansas, a segregationist group that battled integration throughout the 1950s and 1960s. When President Dwight Eisenhower sent Army troops to protect nine black teenagers attempting to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957, Pruden Sr. reportedly told an assembled mob, "That's what we gotta fight, niggers, Communists and cops." Pruden Sr.'s admonition was depicted on page 225 of historian Roy Reed's book, Faubus: The Life and Times of an American Prodigal (University of Arkansas Press, 1997), a biography of former Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus. According to Reed, Capital Citizens Council leader "Justice Jim" Johnson was the senior Pruden's ally in the struggle against the integration of Little Rock Central.
In 1995, the younger Pruden published two op-eds by Johnson in the Times, on June 23 and September 12. According to Salon, Johnson's June 23 op-ed was part of right-wing billionaire financier Richard Mellon Scaife's Arkansas Project, a $2.4 million scheme in which "sources" were paid to help produce anti-Clinton stories that later turned out to be false. Then-independent counsel Kenneth Starr relied in part on quotes from the June 23 op-ed, which baselessly accused U.S. District Judge Henry Woods of being a Clinton crony, to successfully argue for Woods's removal in March 1996 from a case involving then-Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, according to Salon.
Pruden is outspoken in his sympathy for neo-Confederate causes. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), in 1998 he made a speech to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, in which he declared, "Southerners ... hold loyalty to two countries in our hearts." The second country is one "baptized 137 years ago on this very field in the blood of First Manassas, a country no longer at the mercy of the vicissitudes in the tangled affairs of men, a country that lives within us, a country that will endure for as long as men and women know love. ... God bless America, God bless the Confederate States of America, and God bless you all."
Under Pruden, The Washington Times employs a neo-Confederate activist, Robert Stacy McCain, as its assistant national editor. McCain is a member of the neo-Confederate organization League of the South, which the SPLC called "rife with white supremacists and racist ideology." The League's leader, J. Michael Hill, once declared: "The day of Southern guilt is over-THE SOUTH WAS RIGHT-and let us not forget that salient fact. NO APOLOGIES FOR SLAVERY should be made. In both the Old and New Testaments slavery is sanctioned and regulated according to God's word." As the SPLC has noted, in 1998 McCain wrote a glowing obituary of former segregationist politician George Wallace for the Times in which he relied upon the insight of three* history professors, not disclosing that all of them belonged to the League of the South.
McCain has not been shy about his views on race. In one of many examples of McCain's postings on right-wing discussion websites that journalist Michaelangelo Signorile has documented, McCain wrote the following earlier this year on a website called Reclaiming the South:
[T]he media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion. The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sister-in-law, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us.
Despite McCain's demonstrated sympathy for racist causes, he remains on Pruden's staff. But another member of the Times staff was demoted, and eventually "let go" after making racist remarks. In 1994, Pruden demoted then-Washington Times columnist Sam Francis to a part-time position for attacking the Southern Baptist Convention for "repenting" for its support of slavery. Francis was later "let go" by the Times after his remarks at an American Renaissance conference, in which he claimed that whites were more intelligent and less violent than blacks, were published in The Washington Post. The Post reported on October 19, 1995:
Francis was let go late last month after his views on racial differences were quoted by author Dinesh D'Souza in The Post's Outlook section. Francis had said at a conference that his fellow whites must "reassert our identity and our solidarity, and we must do so in explicitly racial terms through the articulation of a racial consciousness as whites. ... The civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people."
Sources at the paper say Editor in Chief Wesley Pruden decided he did not want the Times associated with such views after looking into other Francis writings, in which he advocated the possible deportation of legal immigrants and forced birth control for welfare mothers.
"We mutually decided we had irreconcilable differences, and Sam resigned and we accepted his resignation," Pruden said.
Still, upon Francis's death on February 15, the Times printed a laudatory obituary in which MSNBC analyst and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan called Francis "a fine writer and a brilliant scholar, who had the courage of his convictions."
Pruden recently told C-SPAN that he plans to resign his editorship at the Times within a few years. His likely replacement, Times managing editor Fran Coombs, is an inspired choice. The Times has published some 35 articles by Coombs's wife, Marian Kester Coombs, two of which cited British National Party (BNP) official Nick Griffin as an expert on Muslim culture, as the SPLC has reported. Kester Coombs failed to note that the BNP is an ultra-right, whites-only organization. Kester Coombs has written articles (including a piece on "Making the Whole World England") for The Occidental Quarterly, an anti-Semitic, white-nationalist journal that has defended the legitimacy of eugenics. She penned a May 2004 article for the anti-immigrant website VDARE.com in which she declared that Spanish, "like Ebonics, is a dialect of people who are not educated enough to master English, encouraged by a government not strong enough to demand that they do" (links in original article).
Kester Coombs also wrote the following in a March 2004 article on alleged homosexual influence on American society for the conservative journal Chronicles:
In my view, becoming homosexual is primarily a function of flawed embryogenesis: Stress on the mother interrupts the vital action of testosterone upon the male fetus, leaving his brain insufficiently male. This theory explains why there are so many fewer "gay" women than men, why so many lesbians are discretionary or situational (á la Anne Heche), and why the homosexual orientation (inversion) is so deeply, intractably rooted in a person's very being.
Responding to an SPLC query regarding Kester Coombs's work for overtly racist publications, Fran Coombs refused to discuss his wife's writings for The Occidental Quarterly, stating merely that he had "no relationship" with the journal. He also refused to answer questions about her work for the Times.
*Correction: The original version of this item incorrectly stated that Robert Stacy McCain's obituary of George Wallace quoted four history professors. In fact, the obituary quotes only three history professors. Media Matters for America regrets the error.


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Adventures in JSON parsing with C#
Despite building applications with C# for years, I was frustrated today with some basic JSON parsing. This is something that I have done hundreds of times in Ruby and Python, where parsing JSON consists of deserializing into a Hash (Ruby) or Dictionary (Python) on the fly without defining a class, or mapping, beforehand. It's easy to build the objects on the fly in the dynamic languages. But, with C# being a statically typed language, it's taken a long time to get to that point. This becomes important as you consume many JSON endpoints from a service, it saves us time if we don't have to model all of these responses in C# before making requests. This proved to be an opportunity to catch up with the state of art in C# for dynamically parsing JSON.
Consume a JSON string (such as the following) in a C# program, hopefully creating some sort of dynamic object on the fly that we can work with like any other C# object, and then doing something with the object: saving it in database, sending it elsewhere or rendering to a screen.

 {"results":[
 {"employeename":"name1","employeesupervisor":"supervisor1"},
 {"employeename":"name2","employeesupervisor":"supervisor1"},
 {"employeename":"name3","employeesupervisor":["supervisor1","supervisor2"]}
 ]}

Step 1 – Parse JSON, dynamically converting it into a C# object
Again, trying to get up to speed and taking the most "modern" approach by dynamically parsing without pre-defining classes or mappings. Looking at some samples, I see mention of a JsonArray type, and a JsonObject in conjunction with the newer .NET Http Client library. But, I cannot seem to use these, and am not sure if they still exist. So, I'm going to quickly switch gears and use Json.NET, since it's essentially been the de-facto JSON parsing library for .NET applications for years, and that doesn't seem to be any different now.
I've said "dynamic" many times already, and as luck would have it, .NET 4 introduced dynamic types. dynamic types bypass compile time checking. Great, that seems promising. Rick Strahl has a post where he introduces us to Json.NET's dynamic support, using JObject and JArray
Step 2 – Do something with the C# object
So, great, we have a nice dynamic c# object, but did you notice something in that sample? The last record's supervisor has disparate value types. This is perfectly valid JSON, per the JSON spec:
A value can be a string in double quotes, or a number, or true or false or null, or an object or an array. These structures can be nested.
Nowhere does it say that the value type has to be same for the property across all instances in an array, which if they were all the same type, we'd be done already. So, how do handle this case with our Json.NET JObject instance. As a demonstration, let's say the requirement is to just take the first one if it's an array.
Here's a little program to demonstrate
Overall, the Json.NET looks like the solution we were looking for, with a concise few lines of code to parse and process the result. It took entirely too long to get to this point though, both in terms of the language and in my work to understand it today. Hopefully we'll see more acceptance of dynamic parsing in C# and start moving more examples and codebases in that direction.
Author Ryan
LastMod 2020-05-17 (aabf103)

subset: commoncrawl


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Has anyone used Jungle Disk as a common location for SQL Server 2008 log shipping? We use it for backup already and I think it can be used for taking log backup to our off-site location.
It seems like it will work but I have no personal experience using it and would like to know more about Jungle Disk reliability/suitability for this.


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Alternative dispute resolution can be a cost-effective way to resolve legal issues
From a business perspective, mediation makes sense as a strategic tool to reduce risk. You receive a great return on your investment of a relatively small amount of both time and money.
For those of you who might be new to legal disputes or serious conflict, here are the ABC's of mediation.
Mediators are typically lawyers, ex-judges or in some instances non-lawyers who are trained, skilled and experienced in helping people resolve conflict. The mediator helps each person to explore various aspects of the conflict, to be open to new information, and to consider possible resolutions that may not have been considered before.
The mediator works to reach a resolution that works for all involved. Discussions occur in joint or separate session, or both. What the mediator thinks a reasonable resolution should be may or may not have any bearing on the outcome. His or her opinion is just one of many factors that are considered in evaluating whether, and how, to resolve a dispute.
When the goal is reached of resolving the conflict in a way that works for all parties, the mediator documents the agreement so that it is a binding settlement, or a commitment to future action in the workplace.
Mediation is a structured, confidential process where people in conflict seek to resolve their differences with the help of a neutral third party (the mediator) who facilitates a resolution that both parties agree to. In mediation, the parties make the final decision. Company representatives, including management representatives and/or human resources professionals typically attend on behalf of the business.
The outcome is a written agreement, which becomes a legally binding resolution. It is generally referred to as a "Settlement Agreement," or a "Settlement Agreement and Release," because it releases all claims against the company.
Mediation can typically be completed in a day-long session, although occasionally, some follow-up is needed.
Mediation is voluntary, in the truest sense of the word. That's because no solution is imposed on anyone. It's what the parties believe is fair, or workable, that controls. If the parties to the conflict do not agree, there is no resolution, and they can continue with any other avenues of redress available to them, such as proceeding in court, or pursuing other formal grievance processes.
Arbitration is a more formal, legalistic process. It is just like court, only a hearing (vs. a "trial") is held in a private conference room. The Arbitrator is a typically a lawyer who acts as privately-retained judge. Opening and closing statements are given, exhibits are formally introduced, and witnesses give testimony under oath.
After the hearing, which can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, the Arbitrator renders a written, binding decision.
Consider using a mediator in three instances:
• Litigation has been filed. You've been sued, and it's going to take years and likely cost well over $100,000 to get to trial. Funds put towards the fight could be better spent on resolution.
• Litigation has been threatened. If you've tried, but you have been unable to resolve a dispute informally between yourself and the other party, offer to bring in a mediator, for the same reasons.
• You have serious conflict between valuable employees. If your company's productivity and the bottom line are being seriously impacted by workplace tension, bring in a mediator to help the parties work through the conflict.


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USSR's death blow was struck 30 years ago in a hunting lodge
When the leaders of the Soviet Union's three Slavic republics met at a secluded hunting lodge near the Polish border on Dec. 8, 1991, they delivered a death blow to the USSR
When the leaders of the Soviet Union's three Slavic republics met at a secluded hunting lodge on Dec. 8, 1991, the fate of vast country hung in the balance. With a stroke of their pens, they delivered a death blow to the USSR triggering shockwaves that are still reverberating three decades later in the tensions between Russia and Ukraine
The agreement they signed signed at the dacha in Viskuli, in the Belavezha forest near the border with Poland, declared that "the USSR ceases to exist as a subject of international law and as a geopolitical reality." It also created the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose alliance of ex-Soviet republics that still exists but carries little meaning.
Two weeks later, eight other Soviet republics joined the alliance, effectively terminating the authority of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev who stepped down on Dec. 25, 1991, with the hammer and sickle flag lowered over the Kremlin.
Stanislav Shushkevich, the head of the republic of Byelorussia, as Belarus was called at the time, spoke about the signing of the agreement with pride. The accord reached with Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine, marked a "diplomatic masterpiece," he said.
"A great empire, a nuclear superpower, split into independent countries that could cooperate with each other as closely as they wanted, and not a single drop of blood was shed," added Shushkevich, 86, in an interview with The Associated Press.
But that blood would be spilled later — in multiple conflicts across the former Soviet republics once yoked under Moscow s tight control.
One of the deadliest began in eastern Ukraine shortly after Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, as Russian-backed separatists battled Ukrainian troops in fighting that has killed over 14,000 people.
The latest Russian troop buildup on its border with Ukraine has fueled Western concerns of an invasion. During a video conference Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow will face economy-jarring sanctions if it launches an offensive against its neighbor.
In his memoirs, Gorbachev expressed bitterness about the 1991 agreement, which doomed his desperate attempt to save the USSR from collapse by trying to negotiate a new "union treaty" among the republics, an effort he had begun months earlier.
"What they so hastily and stealthily did in Belavezha was like a plot to kill an injured but still living person by dismembering it," wrote Gorbachev, now 90. "The striving for power and personal interests prevailed over any legal arguments or doubts."
For Shushkevich, however, "It wasn't a tragedy at all!"
"We decided to shut the prison of nations," he added. "There was nothing to feel contrition for."
Shushkevich argued that he and the other leaders saw no point in Gorbachev's efforts to keep the remaining 12 Soviet republics together. The Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia already had seceded and the failed August coup against Gorbachev by hard-line members of the Communist Party had eroded his authority and encouraged other republics to seek independence.
"All versions of the union treaty boiled down to the restoration of the old ways or to Gorbachev's proposal of a new structure where he still would be the boss," Shushkevich said.
Shushkevich, Yeltsin and Kravchuk had arrived at the Viskuli lodge near the border with Poland accompanied by a few senior aides on Dec. 7. Participants later described the atmosphere as tense — everyone realized that the stakes were high and they all faced the risk of being arrested on treason charges, if Gorbachev wanted.
Shushkevich noted that Eduard Shirkovsky, the head of the republic's KGB who was at the hunting lodge, had assured him there was no threat. Years later, however, the hard-line Shirkovsky voiced regret that he didn't order their arrest.
In the AP interview, Shushkevich said he didn't expect Gorbachev, whose power was waning rapidly, to try to arrest them.
"I don't think there was such a threat, given Gorbachev's cowardice; at least I didn't feel it," he said.
Gorbachev said he decided against it for fear of provoking bloodshed in a volatile situation when the loyalties of the Soviet army and law enforcement were split.
"If I decided to rely on some armed structures, it would have inevitably resulted in an acute political conflict fraught with bloodshed," he wrote.
Gorbachev blamed Yeltsin, his archrival, for spearheading the Soviet collapse in a bid to take over the Kremlin. Yeltsin, who died in 2007 at the age of 76, had defended his action by saying the USSR was doomed. The Belovezha agreement, he said, was the only way to avoid a conflict between the central government and the independence-minded republics.
Some participants in the historic meeting pointed to Ukraine's Kravchuk as playing the pivotal role in the demise of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine had declared its sovereignty after the August coup that dramatically weakened Gorbachev's authority. A week before the Belovezha agreement, Kravchuk was elected president of Ukraine in a vote that also overwhelmingly approved its independence from Moscow.
In the talks at the hunting lodge, Kravchuk took a forceful stand, rejecting any kind of revamped version of the Soviet Union.
"Kravchuk was focused on Ukraine's independence," Shushkevich said. "He was proud that Ukraine declared its independence in a referendum and he was elected president on Dec. 1, 1991."
Sergei Shakhrai, a top Yeltsin aide, also said Ukraine's vote played a decisive role.
"The Ukrainian independence referendum and the subsequent decision by the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet to disavow the 1922 Treaty on creation of the USSR put a political and legal completion to the process of disintegration," Shakhrai said. "Yeltsin and Shushkevich first tried to persuade Kravchuk to maintain some form of union, but after the referendum, he wouldn't even like to hear that word."
After signing the agreement, Yeltsin and Kravchuk asked Shushkevich to tell Gorbachev about the deal. Yeltsin also called Soviet Defense Minister Yevgeny Shaposhnikov to discourage him from using any force if Gorbachev ordered him to do so, and later called then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush.
Shushkevich recalled that Gorbachev was livid at the news declaring the Soviet Union dead.
"Gorbachev told me in a mentor tone: 'Do you know what the international community would say?'" Shushkevich said. "And I responded that I do know. — By that time, the conversation with Bush already started and I was hearing it. I said that Yeltsin was telling Bush about it and he (Bush) was reacting in a positive way."
While they focused on unseating Gorbachev, the three leaders put aside disputes among themselves, but those rifts resurfaced later.
Putin, who described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century," has continuously alleged that Ukraine unfairly inherited historic parts of Russia in the demise of the USSR.
When Ukraine's Kremlin-friendly president was driven from power by protests in 2014, Russia responded by annexing Crimea and throwing its support behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
Amid the recent Russian troop buildup reported by Washington and Kyiv, Putin has sought guarantees from Biden that the NATO military alliance will never expand to include Ukraine, which has long sought membership. The Americans and their NATO allies said that request was a nonstarter.
"Modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era," Putin said in an article published in July. "We know and remember well that it was shaped -– for a significant part -– on the lands of historical Russia. It's crystal clear that Russia was effectively robbed."
Karmanau reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.
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Silicon Graphics (SGI) announced that NASA has chosen the company's Altix as the foundation of Project Columbia, a collaboration between SGI and Intel that is expected to foster scientific breakthroughs in space exploration, global warming research and aerospace engineering.
For the project, NASA plans to integrate a total of twenty 512-processor Altix systems with a 500-terabyte storage system to create the Space Exploration Simulator. The system will be among the world's largest Linux OS-based supercomputers.
"For over 20 years NASA and SGI have worked very closely and very successfully to deliver a series of technological firsts," said NASA Ames Director G. Scott Hubbard in a statement. "Project Columbia will build on the knowledge we gained from this close relationship to underpin the most ambitious missions in NASA's history."
Penguin in Space
NASA has noted that the use of Altix will boost its computing capacity ten-fold, and that the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility will be able to handle such critical projects as simulating future space missions, projecting the impact of human activity on weather patterns, and designing safe and efficient space exploration vehicles and aircraft.
The collaboration between the agency and SGI builds on an eight-year partnership that has seen the development of the world's first 512-processor Linux server, which was based on standard microprocessors and open-source technology. It was named "Kalpana" after Columbia astronaut and NASA Ames Research Center alumna Kalpana Chawla.
SGI has noted that it has already delivered the first three installations to NASA, and the complete array should be finished within months. It also added that the Altix has set many performance records in the past, demonstrating ability to run manufacturing, engineering and scientific applications in a Linux operating environment.
John Parks, Deputy Chief of the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division noted in a statement, "[W]e expect the Space Exploration Simulator to initiate a new era in high-performance computing, one in which operating a 10,000 processor supercomputer may be as straightforward as managing twenty workstations."
Growth of Linux Supercomputing
NASA is not the only entity to embrace Linux for supercomputing needs. In the May edition of the TOP 500 Fastest List, which measures the speed and dominance of the world's supercomputers, Linux was represented on over half the list.
This is in contrast to past years, said list cocompiler Erich Strohmaier in an interview with LinuxInsider. He pointed out that five years ago, only a few Linux machines appeared on the list, but that its presence has been growing strongly.
Strohmaier credits the rise in Linux-based supercomputing to a number of factors, including lower cost, its effectiveness in cluster systems and the establishment of more performance benchmarks.
He added that putting Linux together with Intel processors, as SGI and NASA is doing, has also proved to be a trend. "We see quite a strong rise in Linux-based cluster systems with Intel or Opteron processors," he said. "This is happening especially strongly in the academic community, which always has a need for faster processing power."
Scientifically Speaking
The rise of Linux supercomputing appears in some commercial and industrial areas, but it is primarily in the scientific community that its presence is being established. Like the NASA project, other scientific entities and academic labs are investigating what Linux can do.
For example, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announced a partnership with IBM to draw on its Linux-based Blue Gene technology in order to build the world's most powerful supercomputer by 2007.
Thomas Zacharia, ORNL associate laboratory director for Computing and Computational Sciences, told LinuxInsider that the lab appreciates the flexibility of Linux.
"This will allow us to explore a range of applications and technologies," he said. "Having more supercomputing power will give all kinds of researchers greater ability to change how science is done."


text: KLT is a bunch of people like you and me that care about the health, beauty and quality of life in Kittery. Together we keep special places in Kittery intact and in a natural state for everyone to enjoy; now and into the future. We want everyone to be able to get outdoors, breathe fresh air, drink clean water and appreciate the natural beauty and richness of Kittery that make it a place like no other


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The International Carwash Association has reported on the near completion of its three public relations pushes for 2013. The first campaign consisted of a prepackaged press release as well as blogger outreach centered on thinking green. The ICA targeted distribution to occur near Earth Day to maximize exposure. The second campaign drove home the importance of washing cars at a professional car wash to benefit the environment. The third campaign focused on winterizing cars.
The campaign has generated more than 85 million impressions across 4,000 print/online placements for the prepackaged press release and more than 2.5 million impressions on more than 29 blogs with more than 25,000 giveaway entries.


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Call me weird, but I often turn to the last few pages of non-fiction books (although never novels!) before making a decision whether or not to read them; what I find is rarely creative.
Dan Pink's Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us is one exception. He signs off with a handy chapter-by-chapter summary, and even a discussion guide as they do in the Young Adult novels I've begun to devour.
Another is Dr. Jason Selks's Executive Toughness: The Mental Training Program to Increase Your Leadership Performance. His conclusion is smartly crafted and, for any aspiring nonfiction author struggling with how best to scope and structure their book, could provide some much-needed inspiration.
There are several parts to Dr. Selk's concluding chapter. The first poses two questions that help illustrate the characteristics of great people:
- What is one thing you have done well in the last 24 hours? (Because the greats "give themselves credit where credit is due.")
- What is one thing you want to improve tomorrow? (They also "relentlessly pursue improvement.")
Devising questions to ask your readers is one way to narrow down the scope of your book. In Selk's case, his theme is mental toughness and how those of us who desire to be remarkable need to embrace accountability (doing what needs to be done), focus (prioritizing what's important), and optimism (overcoming all obstacles). The two questions mentioned above speak directly to those key points, and presumably helped Selk keep his book tight and well organized.
The second part of Selk's conclusion really drew me in. He offers a chart listing each of his ten "mental toughness fundamentals," along with a brief explanation. It is here that the author intrigued me sufficiently to want to sit down and read his book cover to cover. He poses questions in those charts that are obviously answered and expanded upon throughout the book, as well as mentioning stories previously referred to that I wanted to know more about. Selk's reference to acronyms and other terms piqued my curiosity sufficiently to want to check out the relevant, earlier sections: IAS (Ideal Arousal State); RSF (Relentless Solution Focus); and Gable discipline.
The third part of Selk's concluding chapter summarizes three issues that neatly cover all obstacles to success: Apathy (lack of passion); Laziness (lack of motivation); and Fear (lack of confidence). This is a handy mental checklist to go through whenever you find yourself procrastinating.
Finally, Selk does what any good presenter would do: he encourages his audience to engage personally with the material. He gives the link to a free download work sheet – a clever way to include his web address and drive traffic to his site – and further intrigued me by pointing out that readers would have an opportunity to compare their takeaways with his.
How might such an approach help you write a better book? If you are a speaker, trainer or presenter you've learned the importance of summarizing your material in order to highlight for your audience the most important material to remember. Why not use that technique to formulate the scope and structure of your book? In that way you can avoid the mistake many new authors make, in publishing poorly organized material that frequently wanders off into the weeds.
Take a leaf out of Jason Selk's book and know what you want to leave your readers with – the core takeaways – before you start to write or speak.


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WASHINGTON — Bank of America is delaying foreclosures in 23 states as it examines whether it rushed the foreclosure process for thousands of homeowners without reading the documents.
Bank of America isn't able to estimate how many homeowners' cases will be affected, Dan Frahm, a spokesman for the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, said Friday.
The move adds the nation's largest bank to a growing list of mortgage companies whose employees signed documents in foreclosure cases without verifying the information in them.
Two other companies, Ally Financial Inc.'s GMAC Mortgage unit and JPMorgan Chase, have halted tens of thousands of foreclosure cases after similar problems became public.
A Bank of America official acknowledged in a legal proceeding in February that she signed up to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month and typically didn't read them. The Associated Press obtained the document Friday.
The official, Renee Hertzler, said in a deposition in a Massachusetts homeowner's bankruptcy case that she signed 7,000 to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month.
"I typically don't read them because of the volume that we sign," Hertzler said.
She also acknowledged identifying herself as a representative of a different bank, Bank of New York Mellon, that she didn't work for. Bank of New York Mellon served as a trustee for the investors holding the homeowner's loan.
Hertzler could not be reached for comment.
A lawyer for the homeowner in the case, James O'Connell of Fitchburg, Mass., said such problems are rampant throughout the industry.
"We have had thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of foreclosures around the country by entities that did not have the right to foreclose," O'Connell said.
The disclosure comes two days after JPMorgan said it would temporarily stop foreclosing on more than 50,000 homes so it could review documents that might contain errors. Last week, GMAC halted certain evictions and sales of foreclosed homes in 23 states to review those cases after finding procedural errors in some foreclosure affidavits.
After GMAC's announcement, state attorneys general in California and Connecticut told the company to stop foreclosures until it proves it's complying with their state laws. The Ohio attorney general this week asked judges to review GMAC foreclosure cases.
And in Florida, the state attorney general is investigating four law firms, two with ties to GMAC, for allegedly providing fraudulent documents in foreclosure cases.
In some states, lenders can foreclose quickly on delinquent mortgage borrowers. But 23 states use a lengthy court process for foreclosures. They require documents to verify information on the mortgage, including who owns it. Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois are the biggest states with this process.


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Covering Funerals
When journalists cover funerals, they must do so with the highest degree of sensitivity and professionalism. Although stories of funerals can be deeply moving, newsworthy and even healing for an audience, there is great potential for journalists to intrude on a family's privacy and cause pain to already vulnerable people.
What is the journalistic purpose? Beyond the emotions of the event, why is this funeral newsworthy? What do we expect to hear and/or see that our public needs to know? What motivations do you have for covering the service?
Who is the individual? Is this person a public figure or well known? The coverage of the funeral of a head of state or a well-known figure can be important to the grieving and healing process of a community.
What were the circumstances of the death? The death of a person who has lived a long and productive life is commemorated differently from the death of a young person or a person killed in an act of violence or negligence.
How welcome is media coverage? Surviving families often request and should be given privacy in their time of grief. However, sometimes families want media coverage so the deceased will not die anonymously. If the family requests your presence or grants coverage of the service, tell your audience so they know you have permission.
How to approach the surviving family: When requesting to cover a funeral, consider using a third party, such as a family friend, funeral director or member of the clergy, to approach the family for permission. Once you have the family's permission, the funeral home or clergy may be a better contact for helping to determine your coverage plan.
Minimize intrusion: Pooling arrangements can minimize the number of journalists who have to be inside the place of worship or funeral home. Electronic devices, such as small, wireless microphones and cameras that operate in low light and have long zoom lenses, can minimize the need for journalists to be intrusive while recording a funeral service. Journalists can also get close-ups of flowers, candles and other useful shots before anyone arrives. Journalists covering funerals should dress appropriately, plan to arrive early and stay until the service is completed. Photojournalists should minimize their physical movement inside the service and do their work as unobtrusively as possible.
How can we tell the story without pictures? Consider alternatives to covering the actual service. Consider telling the story, for example, with the service audio running over exterior pictures of building where the service is being held.
Minimize harm: Be judicious in selecting the images you show on the air and the sound you use in the story. How would you justify the use of people crying, collapsing or grieving? What alternatives have you considered to using those highly intrusive images? If you cover the funeral service, do you also have to cover the graveside service, which can be even more emotional for those involved? How will you use the images in your newscast headlines, teases and promotions? Minimize the use of highly charged adjectives such as "tragic, emotional, painful and tearful."
Created by Al Tompkins, The Poynter Institute, for RTDNF's Journalism Ethics Project


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Open your Bible, if you will, to Mark 7 – come to the last paragraph in the seventh chapter of Mark, working our way with great blessing through this account, this historical account of the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. While you're looking up Mark 7 and verses 31 to 37, I'll give you a riddle. Who is permitted to speak but not able and able to speak but not permitted? That's a paradox, and I'm not going to leave you hanging. I'll give you the answer. The answer is in the passage before you. We're going to meet the man who was permitted to speak, but not able and then able to speak but not permitted.
Verse 31, "Again He" – being Jesus – "went out from the region of Tyre and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee within the region of Decapolis. They brought to Him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty. And they implored Him to lay His hand on him. Jesus took him aside from the crowd by himself and put His fingers into his ears. And after spitting, touched his tongue with the saliva and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' And his ears were open and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he began speaking plainly. And He gave them orders not to tell anyone. But the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it. They were utterly astonished, saying, 'He has done all things well. He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.'"
Every Sunday when we get together and go through the narrative of Mark's gospel, I feel a little bit like a story teller, and that's exactly what the gospel writers have done. They have told us the story of Jesus one event after another. In telling a story, it is always helpful to get the general context, the big picture so we know how this particular event fits into the full story. For well over a year now, our Lord Jesus has ministered in the region of Galilee. Galilee is the northern part of the land of Israel. The south is called Judea. The south features the great city of Jerusalem. The north, a more rural area, has as its main feature a lake called the Lake of Galilee or the Lake of Tiberius or the Sea of Galilee. Life in Galilee surrounds the lake. There are several hundred towns and villages in that area, but it is primarily an agrarian area.
For well over a year our Lord has been ministering in Galilee. By the time we get to chapter 10 and verse 1, He leaves that region and heads into Judea and spends the final months of His ministry going through the towns and villages of the southern part, Judea, ending up in Jerusalem with a triumphal entry and then His crucifixion and resurrection and ascension.
He's about to leave Galilee. But before He leaves Galilee, He travels outside Israel with the Twelve. He crosses the border to the north and west of Israel and enters into Gentile territory. That is indicated in chapter 7 verse 24. He left. He went away from the region of Capernaum and Galilee to the region of Tyre, that would be modern-day Lebanon – modern-day Lebanon. He went with the Twelve. Why? This was to be their walking seminar, lasted several months. The whole idea was to spend isolated, non-stop time with the Twelve. They had affirmed already – you remember, from that night when they were on the sea and Jesus came walking in the water – they had affirmed, "You are God's Son." Now that they had been brought to the point where they understood that He is the Son of God, that is their saving confession, it is time now for their intense private personal training.
Up to this time, our Lord has spoken mainly to the crowds. Early on in His ministry He would teach the crowds and eventually He would speak to them in parables, and because of their unbelief He wouldn't explain the parables to them. He would explain them only to the Twelve and His other disciples in private. Now it isn't just messages to the crowd explained to the disciples, it's time alone with the Twelve. They have a formidable task. They will be the first generation of preachers of the gospel. They will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to do that. They will set in motion the proclamation of the salvation that is found only in Jesus Christ, which will eventually stretch to the corners of the world. They need to be prepared and so this is their private, personal, walking seminar, as they travel with Jesus for a number of months into Gentile regions, where He is going to be able to isolate Himself from the busyness from around Galilee to have time with them uninterrupted.
When He arrives in Tyre, however, according to verse 24, He wanted to escape being noticed but couldn't. Came into town with twelve men. People in Tyre knew who He was. Mark 3:8 says people from Tyre had come to Galilee cause they had heard about Him and they came and they saw Him and they heard Him teach and do miracles. So they knew about Him. The crowds were not huge but when He reached Tyre He couldn't completely escape notice, and at least one woman found Him because she had a demon-possessed daughter. And you remember the story, how He delivered that daughter and that woman exhibited great faith. Jesus called it in Matthew's Gospel, who gives the parallel account, great faith. So He's now in this Gentile area in what today is Lebanon, north and west of the Galilee in the city of Tyre, which is on the Mediterranean coast.
After this, after His visit in Tyre, we pick the story up in verse 31, "He went from the region of Tyre and came through Sidon – came through Sidon. He's now moving directly north. Sidon is twenty miles north of Tyre, straight up the coast. There is no record that He taught there. There's no record that He healed anybody there. There's no record that He had any public presence there. It's possible, because in John 21:25 it says that if all the things He did were written down, the books of the world couldn't contain them. We can assume that He had a divine purpose in going from Tyre to Sidon. We just don't have a record of what that was. But again, John says more is left out of the record even with four Gospels than is included. This again is important for Him because after going to Tyre, it says that He moves from there, according to verse 31, through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee within the region of Decapolis.
Now Decapolis is on the east of the Sea of Galilee and the south end. It's called Decapolis because it is a region with ten cities, Hellenized, Greek-influenced cities, pagan cities, heathen cities, non-Jewish cities, but it is from the lower part of the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee and south from there. So He's all the way to the northwest and He ends up all the way in the southeast of Galilee. And He takes that complete circuitous trip going way further north than one would need to go to get to the area of Decapolis for the purpose of extending the time in order that He might teach the Twelve personally. He visits on His journey outlying areas of Galilee, Bethsaida, Caesarea Philippi, way, way up on the north border between Israel and Lebanon, twenty-five miles north of the lake.
He doesn't come back into Capernaum. He doesn't come back on this trip into Galilee, because He's engaged in private instruction with the disciples. And you see that at the end of chapter 9. We'll note that when we get there. This is prior to His leaving Galilee for the final time.
Preparation of these men is critical. It was important that He get time with them. Herod Antipas was after Him and he was the one who beheaded John the Baptist and had no good intention for Jesus. The Pharisees and the scribes hated Him. The Pharisees and the scribes wanted Him dead. They were after Him. The intensity of Galilee posed a very serious threat to Him there. Shallow disciples who followed only His miracles and had no interest in His message had defected from Him and abandoned Him when He preached the great message in John 6 on the bread of life. The crowd in one moment had indifference toward Him and in another moment wanted to force Him to be king. There were so many things converging on Him in Galilee that He needed isolated time with the Twelve, preparation time, crucial preparation time.
So He leaves Capernaum, goes fifty miles north and west to Tyre, goes twenty miles north to Sidon and then takes a long loop even further north. The road east from Sidon would go over the little hillsides, and then it would have to cross the Leontes River, and then it would have to ascend the mountains of Lebanon, which would be a rather arduous walk, all the way to the east. And they would go east, way past the Lake of Galilee into territory east of Galilee, down from the north to the southern part of the Sea of Galilee, and they would enter Decapolis from the east, rather than from the north because it says they came in to the midst of Decapolis. All of this time with His own. No mention of visiting cities or towns in Decapolis. This is just a walking seminar preparing them for their future ministry.
How do we know it was months that passed by? Because just prior to when He left Capernaum, days prior to when He left Capernaum, He had fed the vast multitude near Bethsaida. Remember that? That feeding is described in the sixth chapter of Mark. We estimate twenty-five thousand people were there. But it says that He told the people to sit down, you remember, on the green grass. Well in chapter 8 while He's in Decapolis, there's another multitude, this time a Gentile multitude, and He will feed them. He will do the same thing again. He will create food for them. However, in verse 6 of chapter 8, He says to them, "Sit on the ground." What's the difference between the green grass and the ground? Well you would know. You live in California. In the spring we get green grass. A few months later we get ground, because the frail, fragile spring grass that pops up after the spring rains is gone within two months. And this is the indication that what was green grass at the feeding in the north end of the Sea of Galilee was just plain parched ground, a couple of months have passed for sure.
He comes then down and enters into Decapolis. The best we can discern, in about the middle of that area. He doesn't visit any towns in particular but makes His way to the edge of the Sea of Galilee. He would be exposed to heathenism. These were Hellenized or Greek-influenced towns that made up the ten towns in that region. They were really under the power of the Syrian government. Remember now, Phoenicia, which is where Tyre and Sidon were, was annexed by a Roman general to Syria so it became Syrophoenicia. Well Syrophoenician rulers, Syrian rulers, also ruled all the way down into the Decapolis. So this is Gentile territory. He would have run into statues of Zeus and statues of Astarte, the Ashtaroth that they worshiped way over in Tyre connected with Baal. He would have seen statutes of Athene, if He had visited the cities, statues of Artemis, Hercules, Dionysius, a drunken god of the Greeks, Demeter, et cetera. These are free Greek cities subject to the governor of the Syrophoenician realm. Though within the ancient territory of Israel, this was a Gentile, heathen, pagan area.
So the Lord was still then in Gentile land. Now when He went to Tyre, remember, He healed that Syrophoenician woman's daughter from her demon possession, delivered her from her demon possession, and we said last time that's an illustration of the purposes of God, saving purposes of God for the Gentiles. Right? He commended her for her great faith. She believed in Him. She identified Him as Lord. She repented. So we see a Gentile conversion there, which is important for us to understand because the purposes of God were always to save the Gentiles. Christ came to be the Savior of the world, the Redeemer of the world. He came first to Israel, but Israel was not the end of salvation but the means to carry the message of salvation to the rest of the world. So He is still in Gentile territory, still giving us a preview of the great commission when He sends His own into all the world to preach the gospel to every creature.
The area was outside, as I said, Herod's jurisdiction. It was really under Syrian rule. It would be close to the area south of it, but close to the area of Gerasa or Gadara, where Jesus had healed the man with the legion of demons in him, thousands of demons that our Lord sent into the pigs that went off the hill into the lake. People from that area knew about Jesus from the Decapolis. In Matthew 4 and verse 25 it says, "Many people came into Galilee to see Jesus from Decapolis." So His reputation had extended. We also know that when He healed that demoniac, He told him to tell the people in his region what He had done for that man. And that man responded, chapter 5 verse 20 of Mark, by going out and proclaiming what Christ had done for him through the region of Decapolis. So when Jesus came to Decapolis, there were people who had already come to see Him from there, and there was the testimony of this delivered demoniac that had preceded Him.
So when He arrives He is not an unknown, and in order to give you the full picture, turn to Matthew 15 – Matthew 15. This is the full picture. Here Matthew gives us a parallel look, same time, same place. But He doesn't tell the story Mark tells. That healing is only in Mark. There are three such incidents in Mark that don't appear in any other Gospels and this is one of them. But Matthew sets the scene. Verse 29, Matthew 15, "Departing from there, Jesus went along by the Sea of Galilee having gone up on the mountain, was sitting there." When He got to the Sea of Galilee through the middle of Decapolis, He found a hillside along the sea and there are many such. And He was sitting there. No doubt resting after a very long and arduous journey that would be somewhere between totally 120 and a 150 or 160 miles. He sits down, which is easy to understand.
However, "Large crowds came to Him" – literally, many crowds, multiple crowds, waves of crowds – "bringing with them those who were lame, crippled, blind, mute and many others." Guess what? These pagans living in Decapolis, worshiping their idols, had become very much aware of the powers of Jesus from the experience of those who had crossed over into Israel and seen for themselves and from the testimony of the demoniac, which was very convincing because everybody in the area would have known about Him. So they all come and they bring the lame, crippled, blind, mute and many other infirmities, and they flung them down at His feet. He's at the foot of this hill somewhere on the slope and they just start throwing people at His feet with all these maladies. And He healed them. He healed them. He healed them. So verse 31 says, "The crowd marveled as they saw the mute speaking, the crippled restored, the lame walking, the blind seeing." And here's the hint that makes us sure these were Gentiles, "They glorified the God of Israel."
Back in Matthew chapter 9 verse 8, when Jesus did miracles among the Jews, it says, "They glorified God" – they glorified God. Here it says, "They glorified the God of Israel," not their god, the God of Israel whom, they knew to be the power behind this man Jesus. So He comes, He begins this healing, and everybody who is brought to Him is instantaneously healed to the degree that the people are absolutely astounded at His healing power, and they actually go so far as to glorify the God of Israel. Believe me, they had never seen anything like this from any or all of their deities combined. They recognize that the God of Israel is a God of a completely different nature than theirs. Now it is in that context that we come to Mark 7, because it is in that context that this miracle takes place. This is one of those who was thrown at His feet by friends and family, a deaf mute. And again, this is one of three accounts in Mark's Gospel that appear nowhere else in the other three Gospels.
Let's just break the story down. First we'll say, unable to speak – unable to speak. Verse 32, "They brought to Him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty." They meaning friends, family, unnamed people brought their friend, their friend that they cared about, that they loved, and they had heard that Jesus could help people. And this is not the first person He healed that day, this is just one of the masses, so healings were going on the whole time. His malady was deafness. They didn't have any reservations about what Jesus was able to do. They were seeing it right before them. All they wanted to do was get their friend there and throw him down in front of Jesus so he could experience what the rest were experiencing. He was deaf and deafness, when it's congenital or when it occurs by the age of two or three, always leaves an impediment in the speech because it's hard to form words if you can't hear words. And so it is normal who are congenitally deaf to struggle to speak when they cannot hear. And in that world, there were no remedies. There were no hearing aids. There were no sophisticated techniques for training people like that nor was there any desire to do that. This kind of deafness is either congenital or perhaps an infectious disease of which there were many in infancy or in early childhood, had brought about this deafness. And when that occurs, there will be difficulty in speaking.
Even in Israel – and this is a sad reality – but even in Israel, deaf mutes were categorized with the insane because the rabbis said, we have no way of knowing what they understand. They were not granted normal human rights. And in the Gentile world, it was worse. Who knows what life was like for this man or for all the others. The Jews would also heap on the person the fact that if they had that kind of malady they were under the curse of God and the judgment of God, and it would be viewed by the Pharisees and Sadducees as unclean because they were under divine judgment. We don't know what perspective all the Gentiles had, depending on what deities they worshiped, but these would be people who in any culture were outcasts, treated with disdain. Because it was virtually impossible to communicate with them, it was assumed that they had these limiting capacities mentally.
That was pretty common all through the world. I read this week that Native Americans viewed deaf people as monsters and executed them. That would be true in other cultures as well. So it was a struggle to be deaf and to be unable to communicate. Much more of a struggle than to be blind, because you could still talk and hear and interact. A lifetime of stigma, a lifetime of sadness, a life time of rejection up to this point, and his friends cared about him so they bring him to Jesus. They throw him – literally the verb is to fling him at His feet. And, "They implored Him" – Jesus, verse 32 – "to lay His hand on him." This is what He did. He put His hands on people when He healed them. You see that in chapter 1 verse 31, 41; chapter 5 verse 41; chapter 6 verse 5; chapter 8. We'll see it again verses 22 and 25, places in Matthew, places in Luke. He touched people. There's a tenderness in that, but also there's a recognition of the fact that He did not care for the assumed defilement idea. He was eager to touch these people which the Pharisees and scribes would view as a defiling act on His part. Touching a person like him was a way to express compassion and love.
So here we meet the man unable to speak – unable to speak. But in verse 35 he becomes enabled to speak – he becomes enabled to speak. The Lord responds to this man's friends and to him as he is there at His feet. Verse 33, this is so wonderful, "Jesus took him aside from the crowd by himself." There's a heap of people there wanting to be healed. This man comes and Jesus takes the man aside from the crowd by himself. There is a crushing crowd. There is chaos. There is a din. There is all kinds of jostling going on. This is the man who has been ignored all his life. This is a man who has received scorn and disdain. This is a man who has not probably known this kind of personal care and attention from a total stranger in his whole life. Jesus took him aside, showing compassion, kindness. He's not just another face in the crowd to Jesus. He's a person, and he's going to have time alone with Jesus, going to have His full concentration, going to have His full attention.
And then Jesus began to speak to him in his own version of sign language. They didn't have American Sign Language. Jesus has His own version of sign language and He communicates to him in sign language. Four signs that He uses. First of all it says in verse 33, "He put His finger into his ears." His fingers into his ears, both sides. What was He doing? He was identifying for the man what He knew about his problem. He wasn't insane. He wasn't a maniac. He couldn't hear. Jesus knew that. And He wanted him to know that He not only knew that, but that He was about to heal that. A symbolic gesture to show the man what He was going to do. Secondly, after spitting, He touched his tongue, implied with the saliva, and that said to the man, again I understand. You're not insane. You're not crazy. You're not mentally deficient. You have a speech problem and I'm going to fix that. It's just beautiful gestures. That's not all.
In verse 34, "Looking up to heaven." That's another sign. He's saying to the man, "What is about to happen to you comes from heaven." Everybody understood that. Everybody understood that. Even pagans understood that the gods were above them, the gods were heavenly, the gods were supernatural. We can't assume that he knew anything about Jesus, nothing is indicated that he did. But Jesus wanted him to know that this power came from on high. This is not some magic trick that Jesus can do. And by the way, there were a lot of really phony healers running around in ancient times with all kinds of really bizarre concoctions. I read about an inscription in Rome that required a three-day application of blood from a white rooster mixed with honey and salve to cure blindness. Blind people would try to apply these kinds of ridiculous remedies with no effect. Jesus had no interest in bogus things. He didn't want the attention to come to Himself. And so He looked up – this is a sign, this is a gesture to indicate to the blind (meant deaf) man that the power that's about to surge into his body is coming from God.
And then there's a fourth sign. "Looking up to heaven with a deep sigh." Now people who have difficulty hearing usually have heightened vision, because they have to see. They have to read lips. They have to draw in all that they can visually if they can't get it in an auditory fashion. The man would see this. What is the deep sigh? An expression of sympathy, an expression of pain over the man's suffering and an expression of compassion, of tenderness, strong emotion showing that God is going to come down in power and give him his hearing and give him his speech because God is compassionate. And so with sign language, Jesus gives him his first lesson about God. God is powerful and God is compassionate. He cares. And if you study the life of our Lord Jesus, and you look through Matthew and Mark and Luke, you are constantly faced with statements about His compassion. He saw the multitudes and was moved with compassion. He saw this person and felt compassion. Matthew 9; 14, 15, 18, 20; Luke 7; and on it goes. This is the heart of God, and this is why I've told you so many times that when Jesus came to demonstrate His deity, He did it through healing people, because it also communicated the great compassion of God.
So, these are inescapable realities now in the man's mind. A compassionate power from heaven is going to change my situation, give me hearing and give me speech. And it happened. Verse 34, "He said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is 'be opened.'" That's probably an Aramaic statement – verb. Some think it might be a Hebrew, but the weight of evidence is on Aramaic, which would have been the language Jesus spoke every day. Ephphatha – be opened." The response was instant, absolutely instant. With a word out of His mouth, one verb, ephphatha, the power came. Verse 35 says, "His ears were opened and the impediment" – the bond, the desmos, it's the word for chains that chain a prisoner, the chain of his tongue – "was broken and he began speaking plainly." In an instant he could hear perfectly and he could speak plainly.
Do you understand the extent of this? To hear is one thing. To be able to know that what you're hearing is language when you've never heard language is another miracle. Right? There's no speech therapy here. He doesn't have to go to language class to learn Aramaic or Greek. He has full facility in the language that he's never heard. To hear it and understand it and speak it plainly. The word plainly in the Greek is orthōs from which we get orthopedics. It means to straighten things out. Correctly would be the right translation, to put something back to the correct alignment. He heard and spoke perfectly. No therapy, no learning curve, nobody had to teach him how to form the letters, form the words, nobody had to teach him what the words were. He received an instant facility in the language to hear it and speak it implanted in his brain. It's really stunning. No recovery period, but then there never is in Jesus' miracles. There's no progression here. He couldn't hear; now he hears. He couldn't speak, and now he speaks. And he hears perfectly and he speaks perfectly. This is staggering. The man unable to speak is now enabled to speak.
And then we come to a third point. He is unable not to speak. Now that he can speak, he can't hold it back. Verse 36, however, listen to this, "And He" – Jesus – "gave him orders not to tell anyone." Come on. I've never said anything in my life, now I have something to say and, I mean, what I have to say is just absolutely astonishing. What are You telling me? "Yeah, could you just not say anything about it?" That is an agonizing command, which we wouldn't expect the man to obey, and he didn't. And I mean, I've got to kind of go with him on this one, frankly. I just could never imagine any kind of human restraint that would keep him from telling everybody what had happened to him when he couldn't hear and he couldn't speak for his whole life. Now he's unable not to speak. Verse 36, "He gave them orders not to tell anyone" – not the man, not his friends, don't tell anyone."
Now we're getting used to this. Aren't we? We're getting used to this. In the gospel of Mark, chapter 1 verse 34, "Don't tell anyone;" chapter 1 verse 44, "Don't tell anyone;" chapter 3 verse 12, "Don't tell anyone;" chapter 5 verse 43, "Don't tell anyone." We'll see it in chapter 8 verse 26, "Don't tell anyone." And here we have it again, "Don't tell anyone." This seems such a strange command. Doesn't it? Especially in the light of the fact that back in chapter 5 when Jesus was in Gadara, Gerasa which is also in Gentile territory over in the same area, and He healed the man who had the legion of demons, He said to him, "Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He had mercy on you. And the man went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him and everyone was amazed." He tells that man to tell everybody. He tells this man to tell nobody. What's the difference here? How do we explain that?
We explain that because the maniac was the first missionary to Decapolis. There had never been anybody to talk about Jesus there before. And it needed to be established who He was and what He could do and His power. But now it's reached epic proportions, massive crowds. In the next section, in chapter 8, there's going to be the feeding of four thousand men plus women and children, another massive, massive crowd. And all of a sudden, this simple knowledge about the Lord has exploded into the fact that the place is going crazy because He's a healer and a miracle worker. And Jesus has to slow that down if not grind it to a halt. Why does He say, "Don't tell anyone?" Because – and we've said it before, because the message is not yet complete. Don't spread the message that I'm a healer and a miracle worker. That's not the whole story. It would be like you having one part of the gospel story that Jesus was born of a virgin, came into the world, did miracles and healed people, and preached the kingdom of God, and that's the story. That's not the story, because it doesn't include – what? – the cross, and it doesn't include the resurrection. That's the full story. So He says this again.
Now in Luke 9 verse 18, and I showed you this a few weeks go. I'll do it again. Luke 9:18, "He was praying alone, he disciples were with Him. He questioned them saying, 'Who do people say that I am?' And they said, you know, 'Some say You're John the Baptist, others Elijah, others say You're one of the prophets of old who has risen again.' And He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' And Peter said, 'You're the Christ of God.'" And they all agreed. They all affirmed that He's the Christ of God. "But He warned them and instructed them, 'Don't tell anybody.'" What? Don't tell anybody that I'm the Christ of God. Don't tell everybody that I'm a miracle worker and a healer. Why? Next verse, verse 22, "The Son of Man must suffer many things; be rejected by the elders, chief priests, scribes; be killed; be raised on the third day." The story's not complete until the crucifixion and the resurrection. After that, He gets them all together and says, "Go into all the world and preach this to everybody." Right? Got to have the full story.
Well verse 36 says, "The more He ordered them," which means He kept repeating it, "the more widely they continued to proclaim it."
Jesus still accomplished His intended purpose by letting His disciples know that they were not yet in possession of the full message and letting everybody who reads this know that that's not the full message. Even though they were disobedient, Jesus still established that point. And why were they so disobedient? Because verse 37 says, "They were utterly astonished." How could they possibly keep this in? The word for utterly astonished, one word in Greek, huperperissōs – huperperissōs. It's used only here in the New Testament. It is a compound word, very, very strong. It means above all measure, over the top, superabundantly amazed and astonished. They had their minds blown in the vernacular. They're just completely amazed. They can't contain it. They cannot keep this in. So they spread it everywhere. And that's not the full story.
Their final comments wrap up our story in an incredible way. Verse 37, what did they say in their astonishment? Said two things. "He's done all things well. He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak." I want to talk about those. The first thing they said was, "He has done all things well." He has done – perfect tense meaning continuously. Everything that He's ever done He's done well. Everything He's ever done, He's done perfectly, literally. A rich adverb, kalos meaning rightly, correctly, appropriately. Everything He has done, He has done perfectly. They're commenting on the perfection of His miracles. Look at the blind, they see. Look at the lame, they walk. Look at the deaf, they hear. Look at the mute, they talk. And it's perfect. They walk perfectly. They see perfectly. They hear perfectly. They speak perfectly. And the people who were sick, they're perfectly healthy. They're commenting on the perfection of His miracles.
And how did He do it? With a word. Right? Be opened. Be healed." He literally spoke and it happened. Does that remind you of another text? It does me. Listen to this other text. Genesis 1:4, "God saw the light and saw that it was good." Verse 10, "God called the dry land earth and the gathering of the waters He called seas and God saw that it was good." Verse 12, "The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, trees bearing fruit with seed after their kind, and God saw that it was good." Verse 18, "He made the greater light and the lesser light, the sun and the moon to govern the day and the night and to separate the light from the darkness and God saw that it was good." Verse 21, "He made the sea monsters, every living creature that moves in the waters, every winged bird and God saw that it was good." Verse 25, "He made the beasts of the earth after their kind, the cattle after their kind, everything that creeps on the earth after its kind and God saw that it was good." And in verse 31, God looked at all of it and said it's not just good, it's "very good." That's creation. That is creation. And it was perfect. Everything He made was perfect, absolutely perfect.
Jesus created new eyes, new ears, new voices, new legs, new arms, new organs, creatively by speaking them into existence the same way God created in Genesis 1 by the word of His mouth. God said, "Let there be light." God said, "Let the waters divide from the land." God spoke and it was created. What does it say of Jesus in John 1, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." And then it says, "Everything that was made was made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made." He is the Creator. And here we see Him creating. Every miracle was an act of creation, brought into existence by His Word, the same way He had created the universe to start with. And it was all absolutely perfect – perfect. He is the Creator.
The second thing they said, "He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak." It's interesting that Mark records that, because there was a lot of healing going on that day, blind people, lame people, as well as deaf people, and mute people. But the crowd used this word, "He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute, alalous – alalous. laleō means to speak; a is the alpha privative, not to speak – speechless. He makes the speechless speak. That was the normal word. If you're going to refer to somebody who is mute, you would say alalous. That's what the people used, but Mark, back in verse 32, when he describes the man who spoke with difficulty, uses a different word. It's a different word. It is the word mogilalon – mogilalon, very rare word. The only time it ever appears in the New Testament is right there. It's like Mark pulled it out of the air. There are many references in the New Testament to being speechless or being mute. But one place you have this mogilalon word, it's a rare, rare word. And Mark because he writes to Gentiles, only rarely refers to the Old Testament because they have no background in the Old Testament. But here he borrows this word. It is here in the New Testament and nowhere else, but it does occur once in the Old Testament.
You say, I thought the Old Testament was Hebrew. It is, but there's a Greek version of it called the Septuagint with which the writers of the New Testament were familiar. And since they were also Greek speakers, they perhaps had read that. It's likely Mark had. Mark borrows the word mogilalon which appears only one time in the Old Testament and I want to show you where it is, Isaiah 35 – Isaiah 35. Isaiah's prophecy is broken into two parts. The first part of his prophecy is about judgment. The second part of his prophecy is about salvation. The transition comes in chapter 35; the first part about judgment, judgment on Edom and Egypt and Tyre and Israel and Jerusalem; and the second part about salvation for Israel and even for the world through the coming of Messiah. So in this chapter, chapter 35, you have a transition from judgment to salvation, from doom to hope, from sorrow to joy as salvation comes.
And when salvation comes, when God brings the great salvation of Messiah to the world – and we're talking here about the great millennial kingdom of Christ when He comes to reign on earth – things are going to change. "The wilderness and the desert will be glad. The Arabah" – which is the desert – "will rejoice and blossom, like the crocus and blossom profusely. Rejoice with rejoicing and shouts of joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it." Oh that's Gentile territory, that territory of Syrophoenicia under Syrian rule that swept all around the Lake of Galilee around the land of Israel. "The majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God." Those parts of the land will be included in the kingdom and they'll be transformed in glorious ways. "Encourage the exhausted, strengthen the feeble,
say to those with anxious hearts, 'Take courage, fear not, your God will come with vengeance. The recompense of God will come but He will save you." God is coming in judgment but He's also coming with salvation.
Look to the future, verse 5, and this is what will happen when the Messiah comes and establishes His glorious kingdom on the earth. Not only will the desert blossom like a rose, like a crocus, not only will the land surrounding the nation of Israel flourish with beauty and majesty and see the glory of the Lord, but what also will happen, individuals will be touched. "The eyes of the blind," verse 5, "will be opened. The ears of the deaf will be unstopped." There will be massive healing in the kingdom of Christ. "The lame will leap like a deer and hear, the tongue of the mogilalon will shout for joy." Wow. That's the eschaton. That's the final kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the word used there is mogilalon. Those who cannot speak correctly, who cannot speak properly will shout for joy. This will encompass not only Israel, Carmel, and Sharon, but Gentiles indicated by Lebanon. All kinds of things are going to happen. The scorched land will become a lake, thirsty ground springs of water, a highway, verse 8 – I love this – will be their roadway called the Highway of Holiness. Jew and Gentile are going to take the Highway of Holiness into the presence of the reigning Christ. It's really a magnificent picture.
When that great kingdom of Messiah comes, with it will come changes in the land. Deserts will turn into flourishing forests. Streams and lakes will be everywhere, where there's been nothing but dry ground. And there will be miraculous healings during the kingdom of our Lord, and those healings will mean the removal of blindness and deafness and inability to speak. The mogilalon will shout for joy. And all the ransom, Jew and Gentile, will take the Highway of Holiness into the presence of the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Why did Mark use that word? Such an obscure and rare word? Why did he use that word? Why did he tell this story? I think to touch the hem of the eschatological robe of Jesus and give us a preview of the kingdom glory when men from every tongue and tribe and nation will gather into His kingdom and Jew and Gentile will be healed of all their diseases. Gentiles included in the glorious kingdom. What a picture. Salvation is offered through our Lord Jesus Christ to everyone, Jew or Gentile. And in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. We come to Him by faith in the gospel, the full message. Not just that Jesus is a healer and a worker of miracles, but that He is a Redeemer who gave His life on the cross, paid the penalty for our sins, rose from the dead triumphantly, as God endorsed Him by exalting Him to His right hand on His throne. Have you received the Lord Jesus as your Savior? Have you confessed Him as your Lord? He will heal your soul now and one day your body. He has the power to do both.
Father, we thank You for the way that the Scripture unfolds for us – subtle beauties. We thank You for the little things that sometimes can be so overlooked that open up huge vistas. We see in this story that You are the Creator. You spoke and creation occurred, just as it did in Genesis. And it was perfect, just as it was originally. We see in this story the recognition that Your promise of a future kingdom will be a promise of a time in this world when disease will be banished, infirmity will disappear, life will be long, peace and righteousness will reign, and the blind will see and the lame will leap and the mute will shout. Here's a preview of that glorious day.
We thank You that there is in the atonement, for all who believe in Christ, spiritual healing and one day physical healing when we all enter Your presence and receive glorified bodies, like the very body of Christ after His resurrection. Oh Lord, again You put Your glory on display in unmistakable ways as our Creator, as our compassionate Healer and more as our Redeemer and Savior. We confess You as Lord with grateful hearts in Your Son's name. Amen.
This article is also available and sold as a booklet.


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Kel Mitchell -- Kenan Thompson Wants Nothing to Do With Me
Kel Mitchell Kenan Wants Nothing To Do With Me
Don't count on ever seeing the "Kenan and Kel" reunion you always hoped for -- because Kel Mitchell tells TMZ, Kenan's dropped him like a hot potato ... and is actively avoiding him.
Kenan Thompson -- who starred with Kel in a million different Nickelodeon projects back in the day -- is currently developing a new comedy pilot with NBC, so we reached out to Kel to see if he'd be making a cameo.
Kel tells TMZ, "The truth is Kenan does not want to be seen with me in any form of media, or even have my name mentioned around him."
Kel says he nearly reunited with Kenan for an interview with a popular magazine but Kenan pulled out at the last minute ... and he thinks it's because Kenan's still trying to separate himself from his old co-star.
But Kel's not bitter, explaining, "I have not been upset about this. I respect his choice of wanting to make a name for himself solo."
"There is no bad blood on my side, I'm not declining a reunion, I know the fans love the show and would love to see some type of appearance with us … I just don't see that ever happening because of how he really feels."
We reached out to Kenan's camp multiple times -- but our calls and emails were not returned.
Awwwwww here it goes ... never again :(


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When we first spoke to then Trivium drummer Nick Augusto he was still getting his feet under the kit, having only recently replaced Travis Smith. Almost 18 months on and he is well and truly part of the band. As they prepare to drop their already critically-lauded new album In Waves, Joel McIver sat down with Nick to get the lowdown.
Tell us about the drums on In Waves.
"I'm with Pearl, but we used DW on the album, because Colin [Richardson, producer] and the other guys were really happy with that sound. We used three different drum sets, actually: we went out to the store and went through all the drums and cymbals that they had there. I used a single kick, a 10" and 12" rack tom, an 18" floor tom, one ride, two crashes, a china, a hi-hat and that's it. It was a really simple setup. I use a double kick live, but just a single kick for the album. I've always used a single kick with a double pedal all my life, but we've added a second kick drum for the live show to make it more visual. Otherwise the stage looks kinda empty, especially when you're playing big arenas. "
Your thrash beats are different to your predecessor Travis Smith's: you hit the snare on the off-beat.
"Yes, he did a downbeat. That's the way I know how to play them. I was in a band with Paolo [Gregoletto, bassist] called Metal Militia, which was straight-up thrash, and I learned how to do that beat when I was young. I actually learned it from Pantera's 'Heresy'. I heard that and I was like, 'Whoa, that's f***in' sick'. Pantera and Slayer is where I learned that beat from. Travis did the reverse thrash beat, that was just his style. Slayer's thrash beat makes you wanna go crazy. It took Matt [Heafy, singer] a little while to get used to it, but now it's the only way we know how to do the thrash beat."
There's the odd blastbeat as well.
"It's funny hearing a blastbeat on Trivium's stuff: whenever anybody hears it, they're like 'Yes! Finally! A blast!' because I think they've all wanted a blast occasionally here and there. It's funny, because when I was their drum tech, Travis knew I was into that style and he came up to me and he was like, 'Blastbeats are gay'."
Talk us through how you joined the band.
"I didn't see it coming at all. When Paolo asked me 'Do you think you can play these songs? Travis is gonna sit out the tour' I was like 'Are you kidding me? F*** yeah!' and immediately quit my job right then and there. I was a chef at a bowling alley. I was cooking bar food. No, I haven't got a signature dish - maybe chicken wings, ha ha! I've been through so many jobs, because all of my other bands would go on tour, and work wouldn't give me a couple of weeks or a month off. So I was always quitting and getting new ones. Anyway, I learned 15 songs in two weeks, just from listening to them over and over again. When I walked into practice, I knew them all and everybody was like 'All right, this is good!' Everybody had been worried at first: they were calling me and saying 'Are you learning the stuff?' and I was like '*F** yes, of course!'
For more pick up the latest issue of Rhythm.


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Welcome to Seductive Designs!
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Have a project you don't see listed? Contact me to discuss possibilities!


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Item #: SCP-181
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-181 lives in the class D personnel dormitories on Bio-Research Area-12. SCP-181 is, for all intents and purposes, a Level 0 clearance personnel, knowing vaguely the nature of the SCP without any sensitive information having been revealed. Researchers and surveillance staff are reminded to not single SCP-181 out of his class D group. SCP-181 is to be rotated to a new dorm once a month instead of regulation class D termination. SCP-181 is not to be submitted to any new or Keter classified SCP testing sessions.
Memo to all staff:
In light of recent discoveries re SCP-181's anomalous properties, 181 has been transferred to Site 27-█ and placed in solitary confinement. All staff are ordered to take the fullest possible precautions when operating within the site. 181 is not to be allowed interaction with site personnel beyond the bare minimum to ensure survival and security. -Dr Knucklebone
Description: G████ O██████, formerly LvD-87465, had been incarcerated for repeated offenses of defrauding the Nevada Gaming Commission. Following the 18th month of his life sentence, he was quietly moved to Armed Reliquary Containment Area-02, where he was initiated and assigned a Level D clearance. His first exposure experiment was with SCP-███, and the results were bloody but expected. When LvD-65468 was exposed to SCP-███, he rampaged and killed those in the room, but SCP-181 was spared when an armed response team put down LvD-65468.
SCP-181 was included into an experiment with SCP-075 the week following the incident with SCP-███. It was during this test that SCP-181's unnatural effect on probability was discovered. When placed in the containment chamber with an activated SCP-075 to measure its speed and reflex time, SCP-181 managed to avoid SCP-075 a total of 3 times before suppression teams refroze SCP-075.
Having survived not one but two Keter class exposure experiments, SCP-181 was a statistical anomaly. It would be his third week and full seven days of survival with SCP-082 that prompted Dr. G███ D██ to investigate.
It was Dr. G███ D██'s hypothesis that SCP-181 was generating these statistical anomalies without his knowledge. After nearly flipping 50 heads on a coin, rolling 25 7s on a pair of dice, and pulling all 13 hearts out of a standard deck of playing cards, Dr. G███ D██ got executive permission to experiment with SCP-███. After rolling 19 green circles and succeeding in recreating 4 classical masterpieces of varying art forms, SCP-181 rolled SCP-███ again. As the object came to rest on the red triangle, the facility experienced a tremor caused by an incident with SCP-216, and SCP-███ fell on a green circle. Dr. G███ D██ then reclassified LvD-87465 as SCP-181, sparing him from the routine monthly termination of class D personnel.
SCP-181 shows signs of affecting the causal probability around him by no will of his own. However, tests show that efforts to remove as much chance from an event as possible reduce SCP-181's effect on the event.
Addendum 1-A-07X█: As of █/█/20██, SCP-181 has been transferred and security protocols tightened. It was discovered by Dr. ███████ in a recent audit that overall death and injury rates for Bio-Research Area-12 had increased in the time of SCP-181's confinement by nearly ████████████ percent (███%). It is theorised that SCP-181's anomalous properties affect probability by [DATA EXPUNGED] chaos theory states that the potential effects of such interference could lead [DATA EXPUNGED] worldwide scale. Further information is available only to personnel with clearance levels of 4 and above, due to the possibility of further [REDACTED].


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Shop For
Creating personal and home care products should be common knowledge. We look forward to a time when nearly everyone has the skills and confidence to make their own - but in the meantime, we would love to have you purchase them from us.
All our products are handmade from scratch, in small batches -- no pre-mixed bases or blended oils. They are all-natural, effective, and environmentally friendly. We love to live locally, and use use locally sourced and organic ingredients whenever possible. Our butters are unrefined and/or raw. Our essential oils and carrier oils are steam distilled, expeller pressed, or cold pressed.


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If your tone is your masterpiece, the DT25 tube guitar combo amp is your paintbrush. This portable 25W/10W tube amp from Line 6 and tube-amp guru Reinhold Bogner gives you four stunning, lust-worthy amp voicings and unprecedented versatility that lay the foundation for you to build your perfect tone.
The powerful combination of reconfigurable analog components and HD modeling allows the DT25 combo to be four boutique tube amps in one, capable of producing stunning American cleans, British crunch, class A chime, and modern high-gain tones. Selectable operating class, power tube mode, and four Voicings (which offer the perfect combinations of negative feedback loop topology, and HD preamp and tone stack modeling) can dial in classic vintage tones or be shaped into highly customized originals – and each one drips with boutique tone and touch-response.
The DT25 amp gets to the point. It's a simple, two-channel amp with a streamlined front panel. But if you connect a POD® HD multi-effect pedal or POD® HD Pro multi-effect rack to this little monster the two integrate to become a boutique tube amp factory!
Connected via exclusive L6 LINK™ technology, the DT25 amp and POD® multi-effect rewrite the traditional amp/multi-effect paradigm and introduce powerful new concepts in control and customization. Add effects, additional amp voicings, foot control and instant scalability (including stereo operation with multiple DT25 amplifiers). DT25 is the perfect pairing for POD HD multi-effects. The days of plugging a POD® into the front of an amp are over!
Revolutionary Bogner tube design meets Line 6 HD modeling
The Voicing switch is the heart of DT25 amp. It conjures the characteristic tone, feel and response that are at the heart of four celebrated amp voicings: American clean, British crunch, class A chime and modern high-gain. Different negative feedback loop topologies pair with HD preamp and tone stack modeling to produce the perfect tonal springboards for you to craft your perfect tones:
• Voicing I: Classic American Clean (tight negative feedback loop)
• Voicing II: British Crunch (medium negative feedback loop)
• Voicing III: Class A Chime (zero negative feedback loop)
• Voicing IV: Modern, High-Gain (resonant negative feedback loop)
Selectable operating class and power tube mode
Take your tone in many different directions with the selectable operating classes and power tube modes. Mix and match them with the Voicing switch to dial in truly unique tones. Or align the components in tried-and-true combinations to deliver fresh takes on the immortal classics.
• Selectable operating classes – Class AB/25 watts/fixed bias; Class A/10 watts/cathode biased
• Selectable power tube modes – Pentode; Triode
Any two amps you want, separated by a single channel switch
The two channels can be set to any combination of Voicing, operating class and power tube mode, so the channel switch is more like an A/B switch connected to two different amps. (Or, for a boost channel, set the channels the same with one a little louder.)
For example, set Channel A to a California clean tone. It can be complete with a high amount of negative feedback for a tight sound, characteristic class AB headroom and plenty of pentode-powered body. Set Channel B to deliver vintage Class A chime with zero negative feedback for an open, dynamic feel. Triode mode darkens the tone a bit and rounds off the edges, and Class A operation provides no shortage of touch sensitivity when you dig in with your pick. That's total analog and digital reconfiguration in one touch.
DT25 amplifier + POD HD multi-effect = Boutique tube amp factory
DT25 amplifiers and POD HD multi-effects don't just connect, they seamlessly integrate to transform into a boutique tube amp factory capable of creating any tone you need with incredible tone and feel. POD HD multi-effects come to the party with additional models including 20+ HD amp models, 20+ HD guitar preamp-only models, huge collections of effects, cabs, mics and more. With a single L6 LINK connection, you get:
• Automatic analog configuration. Select a POD HD amp model or preset and the DT25 analog components will automatically configure themselves to the appropriate operating class, biasing method, negative feedback topology and power tube mode.
• Save custom analog configurations. Saving your custom DT25 configurations is as easy as saving POD HD presets. Tweak the DT25 amp settings, press Save on the POD HD multi-effect and incredibly unique and complex amp configurations can be recalled instantly.
• No ground loops. You'll never get ground loop hum from an L6 LINK connection!
Flexible tube section designed by tube-amp guru Reinhold Bogner
1 - 12AX7, 2 EL84 tubes
1x12" Custom Celestion® G12H90 speaker
Intuitive, 2-channel design, instantly reconfigurable per channel
Selectable operating class (Class AB/25 Watts/Fixed Bias or Class A/10 Watts/Cathode Biased)
Selectable power tube mode (Pentode or Triode)
Four unique Voicings (negative feedback loop topologies paired with HD preamp and tone stack modeling): (1) Classic American Clean/Tight NFL (2) British Crunch/Medium NFL (3) Class A Chime/Zero NFL, (4) Modern, High-Gain/Resonant NFL
HD amp modeling technology fuels each Voicing's preamp and tone stack, and automatically pairs them with corresponding Bogner-designed dynamic analog circuitry
Both channels have Drive, Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence, Reverb, Channel Volume. Rest of front panel: Channel switch; Voicing switch; Pentode/Triode switch; Class A/Class AB switch; Master volume; Power; Standby; Backlit front panel
Modeled spring reverb with individual level control per channel
Back-lit front panel
Series effects loop
Cabinet simulated direct output
Low Volume Mode provides cranked up tube tone at whisper-quiet volume
Speaker jack-sensing provides relay driven output transformer protection circuit
L6 LINK connects the DT25 amp to a POD HD multi-effect for additional effects, amp voicings and instant scalability (including stereo operation with multiple DT25 amplifiers) – all controlled by any L6 LINK equipped POD HD multi-effect
Condition | New |